


Him

by IsMiseCeltic



Series: Where it All Began [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday Cake, Bro-Hug?, First Kiss, It is what it is..., Johnlock - Freeform, LOVE HIM, M/M, Pre-smut, So not a Bro-Hug, Working up to the sex, all the feels, crying together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 07:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9481889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsMiseCeltic/pseuds/IsMiseCeltic
Summary: What led up to the hug heard round the fandom and what happened immediately after.





	

It was 2 years ago, today. So much has changed since that day. As I lie here in our bed, his dark, beautiful curls tickling my face, his smell filling me, I can't help but think back on the long road that brought us here.  
  
The day I met him changed my life. If you've followed my blog over the years, then I'm sure you know all about how we met; how I was at the lowest point in my life and so very alone. I felt lost and forgotten by life and everyone in it. Meeting someone who could tell me my life story after just meeting me was fantastically exciting, and also more than a little creepy. I couldn't decide if I was intrigued or completely frightened by him. It was the thrill of the fright that made me go to 221B Baker Street that night. It wasn't long at all before we were out chasing the bad guy together. I have never been able to explain why, but from those very first moments I have felt an overwhelming need to protect him at all costs. I didn't think twice before shooting a man from across a courtyard. I wouldn't have thought twice if I had needed to rip his throat out with my bare hands. I am the protector.  
  
That's not to say that I haven't been the cause of his injury once or twice. No matter how crazy the man makes me, I will forever regret those times that my fists have flown free. I have apologized more times than I can count and he tells me time and again that it's forgiven and forgotten, still I can't seem to let it go. The funny thing is, I do believe he truly forgets it ever happened unless I bring it up. He has a way of deleting things he finds unimportant. I suppose it's a measure of his love for me that he deems these episodes so. Still, after the last time, the time that was so savagely angry, I swore to myself never to lay another hand on him in anger. Never again. He's too precious to be treated so and I am reminded of that fact every day that I live.  
  
When I first moved into 221B I actually believed it when he told me sentiment was a chemical defect. I really believed the man felt no emotion. That is why I was genuinely happy to see him show interest in “The Woman”. Lord knows she was beyond beautiful but she was more sociopathic than he was. But then you know all about that too because you read my blog. In the end, I thought she was dead until exactly 2 years ago today when his phone made “that” sound. But I’ll come back to that a little later.  
  
It wasn’t long after “The Woman” that I found myself all alone again, thinking he had killed himself. I cannot explain the pain, the complete and total darkness that followed losing him, especially that way. To see him jump off a roof and then feel for myself how he had no pulse. How that strong, proud, amazing heart had given up. How his curls were covered in his blood, and his crystal blue eyes looked sightlessly past me. I immediately fell to the bottom of a black pit and I didn’t think I would ever climb out. Then there was Mary.  
  
Mary was a ray of sunlight. She was lovely and sweet and dangerous as hell and I loved her fiercely. She was the one that stopped me killing him the night he tried to joke his way back into my life. Oh, how I hated him in that moment. To have put me through something so brutally heartbreaking then try to act like nothing ever happened, it was too much. That was the first time I hurt him (I don’t count the time he asked me to punch him in the face. He literally asked for that one). The worst part is, he acted like he deserved it. Like what I did was totally acceptable and called for. I hate to see him bleed. I swear, never ever again…  
  
So, as you know, he was home and back to solving crimes. In the meantime, Mary and I planned a wedding. When I asked him to be my best man he acted genuinely surprised. How could he not know how I felt about him after all this time? Of course, it turns out that I didn’t really understand how I felt about him then either, so how on earth could he have? But, as any “best friend” would do, he stood beside me and gave the most touching best man speech ever. Well most of it was touching. Some of it was just weird. And also, he solved two attempted murders and a case of a ghost dater before the dance. He really is remarkable, isn’t he?  
  
Then came Charles Augustus Magnussen. I’m not really supposed to talk about that one, not with the D Notice and all. What I will say is, it was at the resolution of this case that I first realized I had feelings for him that went beyond friendship. I couldn’t believe the lengths he was willing to go to in order to protect Mary and me. Let’s just say the score is tied now, when it comes to killing for one another. When we met on the tarmac before he left, I wanted so badly to tell him what I was feeling, to share this feeling with him, but I knew he would just wave it away as silliness. Then for just a second I thought he might be about to tell me he felt the same for me, then the moment was gone and he was boarding the plane.  
  
Two years ago, when Mary died saving him, I thought again that I hated him. He took my sweet wife after he had vowed to protect her. I didn’t think I would ever be able to forgive him. I began seeing Mary everywhere I looked as he spiraled into addiction. He pursued his own destruction with abandon and I stood by and watched from a distance because I told myself I didn’t care.  
  
Even high out of his mind he was able to stop a serial killer. It was in the middle of that case though, that I lost it. That was the second, and last time, that I ever hurt him. It started with just a slap to try to snap him out of his drug induced mania but that slap opened a flood gate of anger and hatred. I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t even know how many times I punched him but I do know he fell to the floor with the first one and I kept swinging. I was in the process of pummeling him with my feet when someone pulled me off of him. He actually asked them to let me keep beating him. Once again, he felt he deserved it. And, through the blood running in his tears, in his eyes I thought I saw love there. I was so horrified by what I’d done I had to turn around and leave. I couldn’t look at the damage I’d inflicted to his perfect face. What had I done?  
  
In the end, it was Mary who pushed me into saving him. She knew the only way to save me from myself was to make me save him. I got there just before our serial killer du jour finished him off. He was so pitiful looking in that hospital bed. So pale and sick looking. I couldn’t believe what he’d done to himself. I couldn’t believe what I had done to him. I hit him so hard it ruptured blood vessels in his left eye. It made me ache just to look at him. It had to be so painful but he never uttered a word of complaint or reproof. And even in this state; bruised, battered, half dead from drug use, and unshaven, he was stunningly beautiful.  
  
I knew that when he got home from hospital he would need constant watching, at least for a while. You don’t fall into that depth of drug use without suffering the effects of withdrawal, both physical and mental. We all got together and set up a schedule and it was decided that I would bring him home and take the first watch. It was so difficult to sit there across from him and try to chat like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t accused him of killing my wife just after I beat him almost to death. It was so HARD sitting there. And then it was time to go so I stood to leave.  
  
As I walked out, from just outside the door I heard his voice, “Are you ok?”. Something about him asking it so tenderly brought down all my walls like a wrecking ball. I was most definitely not ok. But I also knew that he wasn’t to blame. I had to make sure he understood that. It was Mary’s decision to jump in front of that bullet. He was not to blame and I had to stop behaving as if he was. I came back into the room just long enough to tell him I didn’t blame him then turned once more to go. Then, as I mentioned earlier, his phone made “that sound”. It was ‘The Woman’s” text alert sound. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that he had been secretly sneaking off to meet her in secluded places all these years. It would be wonderful for him to have someone even if I was now alone. I told him as much, even called him a moron for insisting that he wasn’t going to call her. My last piece of advice to him was to do something while there was still a chance because our chances don’t last forever. Having said that, I realized I’d lost my chance with Mary. Lost any chance of ever confessing what I’d done and making it right with her. I would never be able to be the man she thought I was because she was gone and wouldn’t be able to help me get there.  
  
And in that moment, I realized all the anger and hate that I directed at him were really meant for myself. See, I hadn’t been completely faithful to Mary. I had been texting a girl I met on the bus. My wife died saving my best friend while I was in the middle of an emotional affair with another woman. It was so much easier to hate him than to allow myself to feel the pain of knowing I had betrayed Mary. All of those feelings came rushing to the surface. I had to tell him, and in telling him tell Mary, what I had done. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.  
  
Then there was nothing left but to cry. I don’t remember the last time I allowed myself to weep openly in front of another person. Possibly not since childhood. But that day I stood in the middle of the living room of 221B Baker Street, I buried my face in my hands, and I wept like a baby. As I stood there crying I heard him shift in his chair and put his tea on the table. I remember somewhere in the back of my mind thinking I must have been making him uncomfortable and he was squirming a bit. I knew how much he disliked emotion.  
  
To my great surprise, the noise I heard was him getting up from his chair. He crossed over to me and I felt the warmth of his body just before the softness of his touch. He gently placed his hand on my shoulder first. I think he may have been a little scared that I would push him away but when I didn’t, his hand moved up my shoulder and rested on the back of my neck. His other arm was around my other shoulder and he stepped in to press his body against mine.  
  
The moment his hand touched my neck I felt a small thrill shoot through my body. Even in my broken state I couldn’t help but mark that this was the first time we had ever touched skin to skin, apart from handshakes and punches. His hand was so soft and warm and he was holding me so tightly. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a freezing cold day. I rested my head on his chest and breathed in his smell. The soft smell of his soap and the scent of his laundry detergent. Smells I had grown so very accustomed to over the years. But I’d never been this intimately close to him before and I noticed something else. The smell of him. Just him. His skin, his hair. All the while that hand was like a glowing ember on my neck. I was still sobbing, still mourning Mary but at the same time I could feel a thought forming in mind and heart. Something I thought I’d buried when I married her and then lost completely in my hatred for him. A simple, huge, terrifying thought.  
  
I love him.  
  
I LOVE HIM.  
  
Burning hot and blossoming like a flower. Fierce, bone crushing, life-affirming love. And all I could think was please god, don’t call “The Woman”. But I knew in my bones that it was no good. That I would have to find a way to fight that feeling back down because he wasn’t interested in me that way. I was his best friend, nothing more. And then the tears were flowing for a different reason all together. How could I have lost two loves so quickly? One that I tried to nurture but lost, and one I didn’t even have a chance to really know? How could I go on living with this feeling burning in me? I know my sobs grew louder then because he moved. Almost imperceptibly. But I know I felt him shift his weight just a bit and then remove his hand from the back of my neck. It almost felt like someone slapped me. The loss of warmth was a violence and I couldn’t help but think how very much I deserved it. Especially from this man whom I had visited violence upon more than once. It was poetic justice in its purest form that I should suffer with this love and not be able to express it or share it.  
  
And just before I fell into a hole of despair, that wonderful warm hand was under my chin, tipping my head back so that he could look into my eyes.

“You insist that I should pursue “The Woman” now before the chance is gone. You assume I love her or at the very least desire her, but you’re wrong. She is nothing more than a cat and mouse game. We play with one another to fight off the boredom. She isn’t the one for me, John.” I could feel my heart begin to pound in my chest. There was something about the way he was looking at me. Something different in his blue eyes.  
  
“If you really want me to take a chance. If you really think it would complete me as a human being, then perhaps you’ll allow me…  
  
He stopped talking then and drew a ragged, almost fearful breath and slowly bent toward me. As gently as anything I’d ever felt, he kissed the tears from my right cheek. Then he moved and kissed the tears from the other. His lips left warm spots on my face that I hoped would never go away. I wanted them to stay forever because I was sure I must have misunderstood what had just passed between us and that he would pull away now and go back to the emotionless detective who always felt like alone protected him.  
  
Instead of pulling away though, he studied my face, my eyes. What I saw in his eyes took my breath away. It was hope. HOPE. And love. And then it was confirmed. “John, I have loved you with my whole being from almost the moment we first met. You know me though. I couldn’t allow that feeling to be free. I couldn’t afford for my senses to be dulled by love. Then I watched you date and then marry and I tried so hard to be happy for you. I was happy for you! I adored Mary, and as I thought you would never be interested in me, I was happy to see you happy. I could live vicariously through your happiness. I never, never would have wished for things to end the way they have. I never would have tried to come between you and Mary. Please forgive my timing, I should not be telling you this now, so soon after losing her. But you insisted I take a chance…”  
  
It was at this point that I realized he was terrified I was going to reject him and he was trying to prolong the moment with words. Trying to stave off the heartbreak of hearing that I didn’t want him. I had to let him know how I felt. That I felt exactly the same way. And so, I pulled him to me and gently kissed the eye that I had so badly damaged. He looked surprised but did not resist. Then I brushed his lips with my own. Those lips that I had thought about kissing so many times in the past. They were as soft and as sweet as I had imagined them to be.  
  
I felt him gasp and then, after a heartbeat, surrender to me. I felt him relax and then he allowed me to feather light kisses across his face and mouth. His lips were the most luscious I had ever kissed and I was losing myself in the sensation of them. When I felt his tongue trace my bottom lip I felt a thrill like nothing I had ever felt before. For a quick moment, I thought how odd it was that someone known as “The Virgin” could even begin to know how to use his tongue like that but then that thought was completely gone as he took control, enveloped me in his long arms, and kissed me deeply. I felt like I was drowning. It was amazing and terrifying and wonderful. This man, this gorgeous creature whom I had loved for so long, loved me too! How could that even be?  
  
I lost track of how long we stood there, in the middle of the living room, entwined in a tight embrace. Sometimes kissing frantically and passionately and sometime kissing softly and tenderly, speaking words of love and comfort to one another. We cried together too. Both of us. We held each other and he allowed his tears to flow as freely as my own. We mourned Mary together because we had loved her together. As best we knew how.  
  
After a long while we became aware again of the world raging on outside our window. It was time to meet everyone for cake because on top of every other surprise of that day, I had also learned it was his birthday. Finally, I knew when it was.  
  
And that brings us back here, to this bed, with this man and his mop of unruly curls. His long slender fingers are intertwined in mine, his head is on my bare chest and his long leg is thrown over mine under the covers. As I lie here and think back over everything we’ve been through it makes me love him even more.  
  
A bright ray of sun shines in through the window and glows in his hair. For a moment, he looks like an angel. Then finally he opens his eyes and looks at me. Still that look of love. Still that desire. God, what a man. How could I have ever been this lucky?  
  
He raises his head and kisses me. Even after 2 years his lips still set the butterflies in my stomach to flight. I smile down at him. I have the privilege of spending another birthday with him today. I hope I get to spend all of his birthdays with him. My sweet detective. My Sherlock.


End file.
